The name Canaan (Kənā‘anכְּנָעַן) occurs commonly in the Hebrew Bible, with particular definition in references Genesis 10 and Numbers 34, where the "Land of Canaan" extends from Lebanon southward to the "Brook of Egypt" and eastward to the Jordan River Valley. References to Canaan in the Bible are usually backward-looking, referring to a region that had become something else (i.e., the Land of Israel).

The term Canaanites serves as an ethnic catch-all term covering various indigenous populations - both settled and nomadic-pastoral groups - throughout the regions of the southern Levant or Canaan.[1] It is by far the most frequently used ethnic term in the Bible,[2] which commonly describes Canaanites as a people which, in the Book of Joshua are marked down on a list as one of the nations to be exterminated,[3] and later as a group which the Israelites had annihilated.[4]

Archaeological attestation of the name Canaan in Ancient Near Eastern sources relates almost exclusively to the period in which the region operated as a colony of the New Kingdom of Egypt (16th − 11th centuries BC), with usage of the name almost disappearing following the Late Bronze Age collapse (ca. 1206−1150 BC).[5] The references suggest that during this period the term was familiar to the region's neighbors on all sides, although scholars have disputed to what extent such references provide a coherent description of its location and boundaries, and regarding whether the inhabitants used the term to describe themselves.[6] The Amarna Letters and other cuneiform documents use Kinaḫḫu [Kinakh'khu], while other sources of the Egyptian New Kingdom mention numerous military campaigns conducted in Ka-na-na.[7]

Map of the Near East by Robert de Vaugondy (1762), indicating Canaan as limited to the Holy Land, to the exclusion of Lebanon and Syria

The English term Canaan (pronounced /ˈkeɪnən/ since c. AD 1500, due to the Great Vowel Shift) comes from the Hebrewכנען‎ (knʿn), via GreekΧαναάνKhanaan and LatinCanaan. It appears as KURki-na-ah-na in the Amarna letters (14th century BC), and knʿn is found on coins from Phoenicia in the last half of the 1st millennium. It first occurs in Greek in the writings of Hecataeus as Khna (Χνᾶ).[8] Scholars connect the name Canaan with knʿn, Kana'an, the general Northwest Semitic name for this region.

The etymology is uncertain. An early explanation derives the term from the Semitic rootknʿ "to be low, humble, subjugated".[9] Some scholars have suggested that this implies an original meaning of "lowlands", in contrast with Aram, which would then mean "highlands",[10] whereas others have suggested it meant "the subjugated" as the name of Egypt's province in the Levant, and evolved into the proper name in a similar fashion to Provincia Nostra (the first Roman colony north of the Alps, which became Provence).[11]

An alternative suggestion put forward by Ephraim Avigdor Speiser in 1936 derives the term from HurrianKinahhu, purportedly referring to the colour purple, so that Canaan and Phoenicia would be synonyms ("Land of Purple"). Tablets found in the Hurrian city of Nuzi in the early 20th century appear to use the term Kinahnu as a synonym for red or purple dye, laboriously produced by the Kassite rulers of Babylon from murex shells as early as 1600 BC, and on the Mediterranean coast by the Phoenicians from a byproduct of glassmaking. Purple cloth became a renowned Canaanite export commodity which is mentioned in Exodus. The dyes may have been named after their place of origin. The name 'Phoenicia' is connected with the Greek word for "purple", apparently referring to the same product, but it is difficult to state with certainty whether the Greek word came from the name, or vice versa. The purple cloth of Tyre in Phoenicia was well known far and wide and was associated by the Romans with nobility and royalty. However, according to Robert Drews, Speiser's proposal has generally been abandoned.[12][13]

In Biblical usage, the name was confined to the country west of the Jordan. Canaanites were described as living "by the sea, and along by the side of the Jordan" (Numbers 33:51; Joshua 22:9), and was especially identified with Phoenicia (Isaiah 23:11).[14] The Philistines, while an integral part of the Canaanite milieu, do not seem to have been ethnic Canaanites, and were listed in the Table of Nations as descendants of Misraim; the Arameans, Moabites, Ammonites, Midianites and Edomites were also considered fellow descendants of Shem or Abraham, and distinct from generic Canaanites/Amorites. "Heth", representing the Hittites, is a son of Canaan. The later Hittites spoke an Indo-European language (called Nesili), but their predecessors the Hattians had spoken a little-known language (Hattili), of uncertain affinities.

The Horites formerly of Mount Seir were implied to be Canaanite (Hivite), although unusually there is no direct confirmation of this in the narrative. The Hurrians based in Northern Mesopotamia, who spoke a language isolate, were initially regarded by Bible scholars as akin to the Horites, though this is no longer the case.

Canaan and the Canaanites are mentioned some 160 times in the Hebrew Bible, mostly in the Pentateuch and the books of Joshua and Judges.[16]

Canaan first appears as one of Noah's grandsons during the narrative known as the Curse of Ham, in which Canaan is cursed with perpetual slavery because his father Ham had "looked upon" the drunk and naked Noah.

God later promises the land of Canaan to Abraham, and eventually delivers it to descendants of Abraham, the Israelites.[16] The biblical history has become increasingly problematic as the archaeological and textual evidence supports the idea that the early Israelites were in fact themselves Canaanites.[16]

The Hebrew Bible lists borders for the land of Canaan. Numbers 34:2 includes the phrase "the land of Canaan as defined by its borders." The borders are then delineated in Numbers 34:3–12. The term "Canaanites" in biblical Hebrew is applied especially to the inhabitants of the lower regions, along the sea coast and on the shores of Jordan, as opposed to the inhabitants of the mountainous regions. By the time of the Second Temple, "Canaanite" in Hebrew had come to be not an ethnic designation, so much as a general synonym for "merchant", as it is interpreted in, for example, Job 40:30, or Proverbs 31:24.[17]

John N. Oswalt notes that "Canaan consists of the land west of the Jordan and is distinguished from the area east of the Jordan." Oswalt then goes on to say that in Scripture Canaan "takes on a theological character" as "the land which is God's gift" and "the place of abundance".[18]

The Hebrew Bible describes the Israelite conquest of Canaan in the "Former Prophets" (Nevi'im Rishonim [נביאים ראשונים] ), viz. the books of Joshua, Judges, 1st & 2nd Samuel, 1st & 2nd Kings. These five books of the Old Testament canon give the narrative of the Israelites after the death of Moses and Joshua leading them into Canaan.[19] In 586 BC, the Israelites in turn lost the land to the Babylonians. These narratives of the Former Prophets are also "part of a larger work, called the Deuteronomistic History".[20]

The Sidon whom the Table identifies as the firstborn son of Canaan has the same name as that of the coastal city of Sidon, in Lebanon. This city dominated the Phoenician coast, and may have enjoyed hegemony over a number of ethnic groups, who are said to belong to the "Land of Canaan".

According to the Book of Jubilees, the Israelite conquest of Canaan is attributed to Canaan's steadfast refusal to join his elder brothers in Ham's allotment beyond the Nile, and instead "squatting" on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, within the inheritance delineated for Shem. Canaan thus incurs a further curse from Noah for disobeying the agreed apportionment of land.

One of the 613 mitzvot (precisely n. 596) prescribes that no inhabitants of the cities of six Canaanite nations, the same as mentioned in 7:1, minus the Girgashites, were to be left alive.

While the Hebrew Bible contrasts the Canaanites ethnically from the Ancient Israelites, modern scholars Jonathan Tubb and Mark Smith have theorized the kingdoms of Israel and Judah to be a subset of Canaanite culture, based on their archaeological and linguistic interpretations.[21][22]

During the Atlantic slave trade, many Christians began teaching that black Africans were descendants of Canaan, and they used the Curse of Ham to justify enslaving black Africans.[25][26] This connection was especially strong in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who canonized the Book of Abraham which teaches that Canaan was a descendant of Cain. This was the basis for their support of slavery and the rational in denying Africans access to their priesthood.

Modern scholars do not believe that black Africans are related to the Canaanites. (Needs citations)

A disputed reference to Lord of ga-na-na in the Semitic Eblaite tablets (dated 2350 BC) from the archive of Tell Mardikh has been interpreted by some scholars to mention the deity Dagon by the title "Lord of Canaan"[32] If correct, this would suggest that Eblaites were conscious of Canaan as an entity by 2500 BC.[33] Jonathan Tubb states that the term ga-na-na "may provide a third millennium reference to Canaanite" while at the same time stating that the first certain reference is in the 18th century BC.[34] See Ebla-Biblical controversy for further details.

A letter from Mutu-bisir to Shamshi-Adad I (c. 1809 – 1776 BC) of the Old Assyrian Empire (2025-1750 BC) has been translated: "It is in Rahisum that the brigands (habbatum) and the Canaanites (Kinahnum) are situated". It was found in 1973 in the ruins of Mari, an Assyrian outpost at that time in Syria.[28][35] Additional unpublished references to Kinahnum in the Mari letters refer to the same episode.[36] Whether the term Kinahnum refers to people from a specific region or rather people of "foreign origin" has been disputed,[37][38] such that Robert Drews states that the "ﬁrst certain cuneiform reference" to Canaan is found on the Alalakh statue of King Idrimi (below).[39]

A reference to Ammiya being "in the land of Canaan" is found on the Statue of Idrimi (16th century BC) from Alalakh in modern Syria. After a popular uprising against his rule, Idrimi was forced into exile with his mother's relatives to seek refuge in "the land of Canaan", where he prepared for an eventual attack to recover his city. The other references in the Alalakh texts are:[36]

AT 154 (unpublished)

AT 181: A list of 'Apiru people with their origins. All are towns, except for Canaan

AT 188: A list of Muskenu people with their origins. All are towns, except for three lands including Canaan

References to Canaanites are also found throughout the Amarna letters of Pharaoh Akenaton circa 1350 BC. In the Amarna letters (circa 1350 BC), some of which were sent by governors and princes of Canaan to their Egyptian overlord Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV) in the 14th century BC, are found, beside Amar and Amurru (Amorites), the two forms Kinahhi and Kinahni, corresponding to Kena and Kena'an respectively, and including Syria in its widest extent, as Eduard Meyer has shown. The letters are written in the official and diplomatic East SemiticAkkadian language of Assyria and Babylonia, though "Canaanitish" words and idioms are also in evidence. The known references are:[36]

EA 8: Letter from Burna-Buriash II to Akhenaten, explaining that his merchants "were detained in Canaan for business matters", robbed and killed "in Hinnatuna of the land of Canaan" by the rulers of Acre and Shamhuna, and asks for compensation because "Canaan is your country"

EA 131: Letter of Rib-Hadda: "If he does not send archers, they will take [Byblos] and all the other cities, and the lands of Canaan will not belong to the king. May the king ask Yanhamu about these matters."

EA 137: Letter of Rib-Hadda: "If the king neglects Byblos, of all the cities of Canaan not one will be his"

EA 367: "Hani son (of) Mairēya, "chief of the stable" of the king in Canaan"

EA 162: Letter to Aziru: "You yourself know that the king does not want to go against all of Canaan when he rages"

EA 148: Letter from Abimilku to the Pharaoh: "[The king] has taken over the land of the king for the 'Apiru. May the king ask his commissioner, who is familiar with Canaan"

EA 151: Letter from Abimilku to the Pharaoh: "The king, my lord wrote to me: 'write to me what you have heard from Canaan'." Abimilku describes in response what has happened in eastern Cilicia (Danuna), the northern coast of Syria (Ugarit), in Syria (Qadesh, Amurru, and Damascus) as well as in Sidon.

Text RS 20.182 from Ugarit is a copy of a letter of the king of Ugarit to Ramesses II concerning money paid by "the sons of the land of Ugarit" to the "foreman of the sons of the land of Canaan (*kn'ny)" According to Jonathan Tubb, this suggests that the Semitic people of Ugarit, contrary to much modern opinion, considered themselves to be non-Canaanite.[21]

The other Ugarit reference, KTU 4.96, shows a list of traders assigned to royal estates, of which one of the estates had three Ugaritans, an Ashdadite, an Egyptian and a Canaanite.[36]

During the 2nd millennium BC, Ancient Egyptian texts use the term Canaan to refer to an Egyptian-ruled colony, whose boundaries generally corroborate the definition of Canaan found in the Hebrew Bible, bounded to the west by the Mediterranean Sea, to the north in the vicinity of Hamath in Syria, to the east by the Jordan Valley, and to the south by a line extended from the Dead Sea to around Gaza. Nevertheless, the Egyptian and Hebrew uses of the term are not identical: the Egyptian texts also identify the coastal city of Qadesh in north west Syria near Turkey as part of the "Land of Canaan", so that the Egyptian usage seems to refer to the entire Levantine coast of the Mediterranean Sea, making it a synonym of another Egyptian term for this coastland, Retenu or rather Retjenu.

Lebanon, in northern Canaan, bordered by the Litani river to the watershed of the Orontes River, was known by the Egyptians as upper Retjenu.[40] In Egyptian campaign accounts, the term Djahi was used to refer to the watershed of the Jordan river. Many earlier Egyptian sources also mention numerous military campaigns conducted in Ka-na-na, just inside Asia.[7]

Papyrus Harris[41] After the collapse of the Levant under the so-called "Peoples of the Sea" Ramesses III (ca. 1194 BC) is said to have built a temple to the god Amen to receive tribute from the southern Levant. This was described as being built in Pa-Canaan, a geographical reference whose meaning is disputed, with suggestions that it may refer to the city of Gaza or to the entire Egyptian-occupied territory in the south west corner of the Near East.[42]

Padiiset's Statue is the last known Egyptian reference to Canaan, a small statuette labelled "Envoy of the Canaan and of Peleset, Pa-di-Eset, the son of Apy". The inscription is dated to 900-850 BC, more than 300 years after the preceding known inscription.[43]

Coins of the city of Beirut / Laodicea bear the legend, "Of Laodicea, a metropolis in Canaan"; these coins are dated to the reign of Antiochus IV (175–164 BC) and his successors until 123BC.[45]

Saint Augustine also mentions that one of the terms the seafaring Phoenicians called their homeland was "Canaan". Augustine also records that the rustic people of Hippo in North Africa retained the Punic self-designation Chanani.[47][48] Since 'punic' in Latin also meant 'non-Roman', some scholars however argue that the language referred to as Punic in Augustine may have been Libyan.[49]

The Greeks also popularized the term Palestine, named after the Greek Philistines or the Aegean Pelasgians, for roughly the region of Canaan, excluding Phoenicia, with Herodotus' first recorded use of Palaistinê, ca. 480 BC. From 110 BC, the Hasmoneans extended their authority over much of the region, creating a Judean-Samaritan-Idumaean-Ituraean-Galilean alliance. The Judean (Jewish, see Ioudaioi) control over the wider area resulted in it also becoming known as Judaea, a term that had previously only referred to the smaller region of the Judean Mountains, the allotment of the Tribe of Judah and heartland of the former Kingdom of Judah.[50][51] Between 73–63 BC, the Roman Republic extended its influence into the region in the Third Mithridatic War, conquering Judea in 63 BC, and splitting the former Hasmonean Kingdom into five districts. Around 130–135 CE, as a result of the suppression of the Bar Kochba revolt, the province of Iudaea was joined with Galilee to form new province of Syria Palaestina. There is circumstantial evidence linking Hadrian with the name change,[52] although the precise date is not certain,[52] and the interpretation of some scholars that the name change may have been intended "to complete the dissociation with Judaea"[53][54] is disputed.[55]

The archives of Ebla show reference to a number of biblical sites, including Hazor, Jerusalem, and as a number of people have claimed, to Sodom and Gomorrah mentioned in Genesis as well. Ebla and Amorites at Hazor, Kadesh (Qadesh-on-the-Orontes), and elsewhere in Amurru (Syria) bordered Canaan in the north and northeast. (Ugarit may be included among these Amoritic entities.[57]) The collapse of the Akkadian Empire in 2154 BC saw the arrival of peoples using Khirbet Kerak Ware pottery,[58] coming originally from the Zagros Mountains (in modern Iran) east of the Tigris.

The first cities in the southern Levant arose during this period.[59] These "proto-Canaanites" were in regular contact with the other peoples to their south such as Egypt, and to the north Asia Minor (Hurrians, Hattians, Hittites, Luwians) and Mesopotamia (Sumer, Akkad, Assyria), a trend that continued through the Iron Age.[59] The end of the period is marked by the abandonment of the cities and a return to lifestyles based on farming villages and semi-nomadic herding, although specialised craft production continued and trade routes remained open.[59]

Urbanism returned and the region was divided among small city-states, the most important of which seems to have been Hazor.[60] Many aspects of Canaanite material culture now reflected a Mesopotamian influence, and the entire region became more tightly integrated into a vast international trading network.[60]

Amorite dynasties also came to dominate in much of Mesopotamia, including in Larsa, Isin and founding the state of Babylon in 1894 BC. Later on, Amurru became the Assyrian/Akkadian term for the interior of south as well as for northerly Canaan. At this time the Canaanite area seemed divided between two confederacies, one centred upon Megiddo in the Jezreel Valley, the second on the more northerly city of Kadesh on the Orontes River.

An Amorite chieftain named Sumu-abum founded Babylon as an independent city-state in 1894 BC. One Amorite king of Babylonia, Hammurabi (1792–1750 BC) founded the first Babylonian Empire, which lasted only as long as his lifetime. Upon his death, the Amorites were driven from Assyria, but remained masters of Babylonia until 1595 BC, when they were ejected by the Hittites.

The semi-fictional Story of Sinuhe describes an Egyptian officer, Sinuhe conducting military activities in the area of "Upper Retchenu" and "Finqu" during the reign of Senusret I (ca. 1950 BC). The earliest bonafide Egyptian report of a campaign to "Mentu", "Retchenu" and "Sekmem" (Shechem) is the Sebek-khu Stele dated to the reign of Senusret III (ca. 1862 BC).

Around 1650 BC Canaanites invaded the eastern Delta of Egypt, where, known as the Hyksos, they became the dominant power.[61] In Egyptian inscriptions, Amar and Amurru (Amorites) are applied strictly to the more northerly mountain region east of Phoenicia, extending to the Orontes.

Archaeological excavations of a number of sites, later identified as Canaanite, show that prosperity of the region reached its apogee during this Middle Bronze Age period, under leadership of the city of Hazor, at least nominally tributary to Egypt for much of the period. In the north, the cities of Yamkhad and Qatna were hegemons of important confederacies, and it would appear that biblical Hazor was the chief city of another important coalition in the south.

Among the migrant ancient Semitic-speaking peoples who appear to have settled in the region were the Amorites, who had earlier controlled Babylonia. In the Hebrew Bible, the Amorites are mentioned in the Table of Peoples (Gen. 10:16–18a). Evidently, the Amorites played a significant role in the early history of Canaan. In Gen. 14:7 f., Josh. 10:5 f., Deut. 1:19 f., 27, 44, we find them located in the southern mountain country, while in Num. 21:13, Josh. 9:10, 24:8, 12, etc., we are told of two great Amorite kings residing at Heshbon and Ashteroth, east of the Jordan. However, in other passages such as Gen. 15:16, 48:22, Josh. 24:15, Judg. 1:34, etc., the name Amorite is regarded as synonymous with "Canaanite"—only "Amorite" is never used for the population on the coast.

In the centuries preceding the appearance of the biblical Hebrews, parts of Canaan and southwestern Syria became tributary to the Egyptian Pharaohs, although domination by the Egyptians was sporadic, and not strong enough to prevent frequent local rebellions and inter-city struggles. Other areas such as northern Canaan and northern Syria came to be ruled by the Assyrians during this period.

Under Thutmose III (1479–1426 BC) and Amenhotep II (1427–1400 BC), the regular presence of the strong hand of the Egyptian ruler and his armies kept the Amorites and Canaanites sufficiently loyal. Nevertheless, Thutmose III reported a new and troubling element in the population. Habiru or (in Egyptian) 'Apiru, are reported for the first time. These seem to have been mercenaries, brigands or outlaws, who may have at one time led a settled life, but with bad-luck or due to the force of circumstances, contributed a rootless element of the population, prepared to hire themselves to whichever local mayor, king or princeling prepared to undertake their support.

Although Habiru SA-GAZ (a Sumerian ideogram glossed as "brigand" in Akkadian), and sometimes Habiri (an Akkadian word) had been reported in Mesopotamia from the reign of the Sumerian king, Shulgi of Ur III, their appearance in Canaan appears to have been due to the arrival of a new state based in Asia Minor to the north of Assyria based upon Maryannu aristocracy of horse-drawn charioteers, associated with the Indo-Aryan rulers of the Hurrians, known as Mitanni.

The Habiru seem to have been more a social class than an ethnic group. One analysis shows that the majority were, however, Hurrian (a non-Semitic-speaking group from Asia Minor who spoke a language isolate), though there were a number of Semites and even some Kassite and Luwian adventurers amongst their number. The reign of Amenhotep III, as a result was not quite so tranquil for the Asiatic province, as Habiru/'Apiru contributed to greater political instability. It is believed[by whom?] that turbulent chiefs began to seek their opportunities, though as a rule could not find them without the help of a neighbouring king. The boldest of the disaffected nobles was Aziru, son of Abdi-Ashirta, a prince of Amurru, who even before the death of Amenhotep III, endeavoured to extend his power into the plain of Damascus. Akizzi, governor of Katna (Qatna?) (near Hamath), reported this to the Pharaoh, who seems to have sought to frustrate his attempts. In the next reign, however, both father and son caused infinite trouble to loyal servants of Egypt like Rib-Hadda, governor of Gubla (Gebal), not the least through transferring loyalty from the Egyptian crown to that of the expanding neighbouring Asia Minor based Hittite Empire under Suppiluliuma I.[62]

Egyptian power in Canaan thus suffered a major setback when the Hittites (or Hatti) advanced into Syria in the reign of Amenhotep III, and became even more threatening in that of his successor, displacing the Amorites and prompting a resumption of Semitic migration. Abd-Ashirta and his son Aziru, at first afraid of the Hittites, afterwards made a treaty with their king, and joining with the Hittites, attacked and conquered the districts remaining loyal to Egypt. In vain did Rib-Hadda send touching appeals for aid to the distant Pharaoh, who was far too engaged in his religious innovations to attend to such messages.

In the Amarna letters, we meet with the Habiri in northern Syria. Etakkama wrote thus to the Pharaoh,

"Behold, Namyawaza has surrendered all the cities of the king, my lord to the SA-GAZ in the land of Kadesh and in Ubi. But I will go, and if thy gods and thy sun go before me, I will bring back the cities to the king, my lord, from the Habiri, to show myself subject to him; and I will expel the SA-GAZ."

Similarly, Zimrida, king of Sidon (named 'Siduna'), declared, "All my cities which the king has given into my hand, have come into the hand of the Habiri." The king of Jerusalem, Abdi-Heba, reported to the Pharaoh,

"If (Egyptian) troops come this year, lands and princes will remain to the king, my lord; but if troops come not, these lands and princes will not remain to the king, my lord."

Abdi-heba's principal trouble arose from persons called Iilkili and the sons of Labaya, who are said to have entered into a treasonable league with the Habiri. Apparently this restless warrior found his death at the siege of Gina. All these princes, however, maligned each other in their letters to the Pharaoh, and protested their own innocence of traitorous intentions. Namyawaza, for instance, whom Itakkama (see above) accused of disloyalty, wrote thus to the Pharaoh,

"Behold, I and my warriors and my chariots, together with my brethren and my SA-GAZ, and my Suti ?9 are at the disposal of the (royal) troops to go whithersoever the king, my lord, commands."[63]

From the mid 14th century BC through to the 11th century BC, much of Canaan (particularly the north, central and eastern regions of Syria and the north western Mediterranean coastal regions) fell to the Middle Assyrian Empire, and both Egyptian and Hittite influence waned as a result. Powerful Assyrian kings forced tribute on Canaanite states and cities from north, east and central Syria as far as the Mediterranean.[64]Arik-den-ili (c. 1307–1296 BC), consolidated Assyrian power in the Levant, he defeated and conquered ancient Semitic-speaking peoples of the so-called Ahlamu group. He was followed by Adad-nirari I (1295–1275 BC) who continued expansion to the northwest, mainly at the expense of the Hittites and Hurrians, conquering Hittite territories such as Carchemish and beyond. In 1274 BC Shalmaneser I ascended the throne, a powerful warrior king, he annexed territories in Syria and Canaan previously under Egyptian or Hittite influence, and the growing power of Assyria was perhaps the reason why these two states made peace with one another.[64] This trend continued under Tukulti-Ninurta I (1244–1208 BC) and after a hiatus, Tiglath-Pileser I (1115–1077 BC) who conquered the Arameans of northern Syria, and thence he proceeded to conquer Damascus and the Canaanite/Phoenician cities of (Byblos), Sidon, Tyre and finally Arvad.[64]

Ann Killebrew has shown that cities such as Jerusalem were large and important walled settlements in the 'Pre-Israelite' Middle Bronze IIB and the Israelite Iron Age IIC period (ca. 1800–1550 and 720–586 BC), but that during the intervening Late Bronze (LB) and Iron Age I and IIA/B Ages sites like Jerusalem were small and relatively insignificant and unfortified towns.[65]

Just after the Amarna period a new problem arose which was to trouble the Egyptian control of southern Canaan (the rest of the region now being under Assyrian control). Pharaoh Horemhab campaigned against Shasu (Egyptian = "wanderers") or living in nomadic pastoralist tribes, who had moved across the Jordan to threaten Egyptian trade through Galilee and Jezreel. Seti I (ca. 1290 BC) is said to have conquered these Shasu, Semitic-speaking nomads living just south and east of the Dead Sea, from the fortress of Taru (Shtir?) to "Ka-n-'-na". After the near collapse of the Battle of Kadesh, Rameses II had to campaign vigorously in Canaan to maintain Egyptian power. Egyptian forces penetrated into Moab and Ammon, where a permanent fortress garrison (Called simply "Rameses") was established.

Some believe the "Habiru" signified generally all the nomadic tribes known as "Hebrews", and particularly the early Israelites of the period of the "judges", who sought to appropriate the fertile region for themselves.[66] However, the term was rarely used to describe the Shasu. Whether the term may also include other related ancient Semitic-speaking peoples such as the Moabites, Ammonites and Edomites is uncertain. It may not be an ethnonym at all; see the article Habiru for details.

The entire region (including all Phoenician/Canaanite and Aramean states, together with Israel, Philistia and Samarra) was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire during the 10th and 9th centuries BC, and would remain so for three hundred years until the end of the 7th century BC. Assyrian emperor-kings such as Ashurnasirpal, Adad-nirari II, Sargon II, Tiglath-Pileser III, Esarhaddon, Sennacherib and Ashurbanipal came to dominate Canaanite affairs. The Egyptians, then under a Nubian Dynasty, made a failed attempt to regain a foothold in the region, but were vanquished by the Assyrians, leading to an Assyrian invasion and conquest of Egypt and the destruction of the Kushite Empire. The Kingdom of Judah was forced to pay tribute to Assyria. Between 616 and 605 BC the Assyrian Empire collapsed due to a series of bitter internal civil wars, followed by an attack by an alliance of Babylonians, Medes and Persians and the Scythians. The Babylonians inherited the western part of the empire of their Assyrian brethren, including all the lands in Canaan and Syria, together with Israel and Judah. They successfully defeated the Egyptians, who had belatedly attempted to aid their former masters, the Assyrians, and then remained in the region in an attempt to regain a foothold in the Near East. The Babylonian Empire itself collapsed in 539 BC, and Canaan fell to the Persians and became a part of the Achaemenid Empire. It remained so until in 332 BC it was conquered by the Greeks under Alexander the Great, later to fall to Rome in the late 2nd century BC, and then Byzantium, until the Arab Islamic invasion and conquest of the 7th century AD.[64]

Canaan included what today are Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, northwestern Jordan, and some western areas of Syria.[67] According to archaeologist Jonathan N. Tubb, "Ammonites, Moabites, Israelites and Phoenicians undoubtedly achieved their own cultural identities, and yet ethnically they were all Canaanites", "the same people who settled in farming villages in the region in the 8th millennium BC."[68]

There is uncertainty about whether the name Canaan refers to a specific Semitic-speaking ethnic group wherever they live, the homeland of this ethnic group, or a region under the control of this ethnic group, or perhaps any combination of the three.

Canaanite civilization was a response to long periods of stable climate interrupted by short periods of climate change. During these periods, Canaanites profited from their intermediary position between the ancient civilizations of the Middle East—Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia (Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, Babylonia), the Hittites, and Minoan Crete—to become city states of merchant princes along the coast, with small kingdoms specializing in agricultural products in the interior. This polarity, between coastal towns and agrarian hinterland, was illustrated in Canaanite mythology by the struggle between the storm god, variously called Teshub (Hurrian) or Ba'al Hadad (SemiticAmorite/Aramean) and Ya'a, Yaw, Yahu or Yam, god of the sea and rivers. Early Canaanite civilization was characterized by small walled market towns, surrounded by peasant farmers growing a range of local horticultural products, along with commercial growing of olives, grapes for wine, and pistachios, surrounded by extensive grain cropping, predominantly wheat and barley. Harvest in early summer was a season when transhumancenomadism was practiced—shepherds staying with their flocks during the wet season and returning to graze them on the harvested stubble, closer to water supplies in the summer. Evidence of this cycle of agriculture is found in the Gezer calendar and in the biblical cycle of the year.

Periods of rapid climate change generally saw a collapse of this mixed Mediterranean farming system; commercial production was replaced with subsistence agricultural foodstuffs; and transhumance pastoralism became a year-round nomadic pastoral activity, whilst tribal groups wandered in a circular pattern north to the Euphrates, or south to the Egyptian delta with their flocks. Occasionally, tribal chieftains would emerge, raiding enemy settlements and rewarding loyal followers from the spoils or by tariffs levied on merchants. Should the cities band together and retaliate, a neighbouring state intervene or should the chieftain suffer a reversal of fortune, allies would fall away or intertribal feuding would return. It has been suggested that the Patriarchal tales of the Bible reflect such social forms.[69] During the periods of the collapse of Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia and the First Intermediate Period of Egypt, the Hyksos invasions and the end of the Middle Bronze Age in Assyria and Babylonia, and the Late Bronze Age collapse, trade through the Canaanite area would dwindle, as Egypt, Babylonia, and to a lesser degree Assyria, withdrew into their isolation. When the climates stabilized, trade would resume firstly along the coast in the area of the Philistine and Phoenician cities. As markets redeveloped, new trade routes that would avoid the heavy tariffs of the coast would develop from Kadesh Barnea, through Hebron, Lachish, Jerusalem, Bethel, Samaria, Shechem, Shiloh through Galilee to Jezreel, Hazor and Megiddo. Secondary Canaanite cities would develop in this region. Further economic development would see the creation of a third trade route from Eilath, Timna, Edom (Seir), Moab, Ammon and thence to the Aramean states of Damascus and Palmyra. Earlier states (for example the Philistines and Tyrians in the case of Judah and Samaria, for the second route, and Judah and Israel for the third route) tried generally unsuccessfully to control the interior trade.[70]

Tel Kabri contains the remains of a Canaanite city from the Middle Bronze Age (2000–1550 B.C.). The city, the most important of the cities in the Western Galilee during that period, had a palace at its center. Tel Kabri is the only Canaanite city that can be excavated in its entirety because after the city was abandoned, no other city was built over its remains. It is notable because the predominant extra-Canaanite cultural influence is Minoan; Minoan-style frescoes decorate the palace.[71]

"Canaan" is used as a synonym of the Promised Land; for instance, it is used in this sense in the hymn, Canaan's Happy Shore, with the lines: "Oh, brothers, will you meet me, (3x)/On Canaan's happy shore," a hymn set to the tune later used in The Battle Hymn of the Republic.

^ abDrews 1998, pp. 48–49: "The name 'Canaan' did not entirely drop out of usage in the Iron Age. Throughout the area that we—with the Greek speakers—prefer to call 'Phoenicia', the inhabitants in the ﬁrst millennium BC called themselves 'Canaanites'. For the area south of Mt. Carmel, however, after the Bronze Age ended references to 'Canaan' as a present phenomenon dwindle almost to nothing (the Hebrew Bible of course makes frequent mention of 'Canaan' and 'Canaanites', but regularly as a land that had become something else, and as a people who had been annihilated)."

^Drews 1998, p. 61: "The name 'Canaan', never very popular, went out of vogue with the collapse of the Egyptian empire."

^For details of the disputes, see the works of Lemche and Na'aman, the main protagonists.

^Drews 1998, pp. 47-49:"From the Egyptian texts it appears that the whole of Egypt’s province in the Levant was called ‘Canaan’, and it would perhaps not be incorrect to understand the term as the name of that province...It may be that the term began as a Northwest Semitic common noun, ‘the subdued, the subjugated’, and that it then evolved into the proper name of the Asiaticland that had fallen under Egypt’s dominion (just as the ﬁrst Roman province in Gaul eventually became Provence)"

^Drews 1998, p. 48: "Until E.A. Speiser proposed that the name ‘Canaan’ was derived from the (unattested) word kinahhu, which Speiser supposed must have been an Akkadian term for reddish-blue or purple, Semiticists regularly explained ‘Canaan’ (Hebrew këna‘an; elsewhere in Northwest Semitic kn‘n) as related to the Aramaic verb kn‘: ‘to bend down, be low’. That etymology is perhaps correct after all. Speiser’s alternative explanation has been generally abandoned, as has the proposal that ‘Canaan’ meant ‘the land of merchants’."

^The Land of Israel: National Home Or Land of Destiny, By Eliezer Schweid, Translated by Deborah Greniman, Published 1985 Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, ISBN 0-8386-3234-3, pp. 16-17: … let us begin by examining the kinds of assertions about the land of Israel that we encounter in persuing [sic] the books of the Bible. … A third kind of assertion deals with the history of the Land of Israel. Before its settlement by the Israelite tribes, it is called The Land of Canaan

^Mark Smith in The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities of Ancient Israel states,

Despite the long regnant model that the Canaanites and Israelites were people of fundamentally different culture, archaeological data now casts doubt on this view. The material culture of the region exhibits numerous common points between Israelites and Canaanites in the Iron I period (ca. 1200–1000 BC). The record would suggest that the Israelite culture largely overlapped with and derived from Canaanite culture... In short, Israelite culture was largely Canaanite in nature. Given the information available, one cannot maintain a radical cultural separation between Canaanites and Israelites for the Iron I period." (pp. 6–7).Smith, Mark (2002) The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities of Ancient Israel, (Eerdman's)

^Benjamin Braude, "The Sons of Noah and the Construction of Ethnic and Geographical Identities in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods, "William and Mary Quarterly LIV (January 1997): 103–142. See also William McKee Evans, "From the Land of Canaan to the Land of Guinea: The Strange Odyssey of the Sons of Ham,"American Historical Review 85 (February 1980): 15–43

^Lemche, pp. 27-28: "However, all but one of the references belong to the second half of the 2nd millennium BC, the one exception being the mention of some Canaanites in a document from Marl from the 18th century BC. In this document we find a reference to LUhabbatum u LUKi-na-ah-num. The wording of this passage creates some problems as to the identity of these 'Canaanites', because of the parallelism between LUKh-na-ah-num and LUhabbatum, which is unexpected. The Akkadian word habbatum, the meaning of which is actually 'brigands', is sometimes used to translate the Sumerian expression SA.GAZ, which is normally thought to be a logogram for habiru, 'Hebrews'. Thus there is some reason to question the identity of the 'Canaanites' who appear in this text from Marl We may ask whether these people were called 'Canaanites' because they were ethnically of another stock than the ordinary population of Mari, or whether it was because they came from a specific geographical area, the land of Canaan. However, because of the parallelism in this text between LUhabbatum and LUKi-na-ah-num, we cannot exclude the possibility that the expression 'Canaanites' was used here with a sociological meaning. It could be that the word 'Canaanites' was in this case understood as a sociological designation of some sort which shared at least some connotations with the sociological term habiru. Should this be the case, the Canaanites of Marl may well have been refugees or outlaws rather than ordinary foreigners from a certain country (from Canaan). Worth considering is also Manfred Weippert's interpretation of the passage LUhabbatum u LUKi-na-ah-num—literally 'Canaanites and brigands'—as 'Canaanite brigands', which may welt mean 'highwaymen of foreign origin', whether or not they were actually Canaanites coming from Phoenicia."

^Drews 1998, p. 49a:"In the Papyrus Harris, from the middle of the twelfth century, the late Ramesses III claims to have built for Amon a temple in 'the Canaan' of Djahi. More than three centuries later comes the next—and very last—Egyptian reference to 'Canaan' or 'the Canaan': a basalt statuette, usually assigned to the Twenty-Second Dynasty, is labeled, 'Envoy of the Canaan and of Palestine, Pa-di-Eset, the son of Apy'."

^Drews 1998, p. 49b:"Although New Assyrian inscriptions frequently refer to the Levant, they make no mention of ‘Canaan’. Nor do Persian and Greek sources refer to it."

^ abCohen, Getzel (2006), The Hellenistic Settlements in Syria, the Red Sea Basin, and North Africa, University of California Press, p. 205, ISBN978-0-520-93102-2, Berytos, being part of Phoenicia, was under Ptolemaic control until 200 B.C. After the battle of Panion Phoenicia and southern Syria passed to the Seleucids. In the second century B.C. Laodikeia issued both autonomous as well as quasi-autonomous coins. The autonomous bronze coins had a Tyche on the obverse. The reverse often had Poseidon or Astarte standing on the prow of a ship, the letters BH or [lambda alpha] and the monogram [phi], that is, the initials of Berytos/Laodikeia and Phoenicia, and, on a few coins, the Phoenician legend LL'DK' 'S BKN 'N or LL'DK' 'M BKN ’N, which has been read as "Of Laodikcia which is in Canaan" or "Of Laodikcia Mother in Canaan." The quasi-municipal coins – issued under Antiochos IV Epiphanes ( 175-164 B.c.) and continuing with Alexander I Balas (150-145 B.c.), Demetrios II Nikator (146-138 B.C.), and Alexander II Zabinas (128-123 n.c.) – contained the king's head on the obverse, and on the reverse the name of the king in Greek, the city name in Phoenician (LL'DK' 'S BKN ’N or LL'DK’ 'M BKN 'N), the Greek letters [lambda alpha], and the monogram [phi]. After c.123 B.C. the Phoenician "Of Laodikcia which is in Canaan" / "Of Laodikcia Mother in Canaan" is no longer attested

^"Cambridge History of Judaism". Cambridge.org. p. 210. Retrieved 16 August 2011. "In both the Idumaean and the Ituraean alliances, and in the annexation of Samaria, the Judaeans had taken the leading role. They retained it. The whole political–military–religious league that now united the hill country of Palestine from Dan to Beersheba, whatever it called itself, was directed by, and soon came to be called by others, 'the Ioudaioi'"

Canaan & Ancient Israel, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Explores their identities (land-time, daily life, economy & religion) in pre-historical times through the material remains that they have left behind.